Faculty Profile for Dr. Yidan Zhu

profile photo for Dr. Yidan Zhu
Dr. Yidan Zhu
Assistant Professor — Conslng, Ldrship, Adlt Educ & Schl Psych
ASBS 306
phone: (512) 245-3755

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Yidan Zhu (Daisy) is an Assistant Professor in Adult, Professional, and Community Education at Texas State University. She is a Chinese-Canadian scholar of adult education and community development with a focus on adult learning, immigrants’/women’s learning, aging and lifelong learning, health professions education, and professional learning in adult education. She obtained her Ph.D. in Adult Education and Community Development from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, in 2017. She received a B.A. in Theatre, Film and Literature at the Communication University of China, China and a M.Ed. in Second Language Education at Simon Fraser University, Canada. She worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of British Columbia, Canada (2018-2020) and as a Research Assistant Professor in Lingnan University, Hong Kong SAR, China (2020-2022).

Teaching Interests

She is interested in teaching courses related to adult education, health professions education, immigration studies, and research methodologies.

Research Interests

As a scholar committed to adult learning and community development, her research focuses on how adult learning is socially organized with hierarchical and unequal social relations from local to global. Her research addresses three focal areas: 1) immigrant mothers’/women’s transnational lifelong learning; 2) professional learning; and 3) aging and adult education. Her first interest area arises from her doctoral study. Her doctoral dissertation adopted a critical ethnography in Vancouver, BC, and examined the tensions between global and neoliberal restructuring and the social organization of Chinese immigrant mothers’ knowledge and transnational learning. Her second interest area explores health professionals’ learning and professional development in medical/dental higher education and the promotion of a holistic and person-centered health professionals’ learning. She is now working on a research project examining STEM professionals’ and K-12 teachers’ learning in the workforce. Her third area focuses on aging and adult education, including senior immigrants’ learning, gerontechnology, and smart aging.

Selected Scholarly/Creative Work

  • Zhu, Y., & Niu, Y. (n.d.). Transnational career development of Chinese migrant mothers: A kaleidoscopic perspective.
  • Zhu, Y., Niu, Y., & Hughes, C. (n.d.). Leadership, strategy, engagement, and career development.
  • Zhu, Y., & Zhang, Y. (2023). Tsinghua or Beida? factors affecting high school students’ selection of prestigious universities in China. Asian Pacific Education Review. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-023-09919-0
  • Zhu, Y., Sun, Q., & Glowacki-Dudka, M. (2023). Women, race, and lifelong learning: Navigating feminist approaches in adult education. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education (NDACE). Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ace.20507
  • Zhu, Y. (2023). Transforming adult education through criticalfeminist theory: Towards a criticalconsciousness learning model. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education (NDACE). https://doi.org/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ace.20515

Selected Service Activities

Track Chair
AHRD
2023-Present
Reviewer / Referee
Adult Learning
August 2023-Present
Reviewer / Referee
European Journal of Education
June 2023-Present
Chair
Graduate Student Association
May 2023-Present
Editorial Review Board Member
New Horizons in Adult Education and Human Resource Development
May 2023-Present